Conservapedia is an open wiki that does not allow liberal censorship, or trolling. Although we assume good faith as a matter of principle, some people would abuse this trust. For those editors who violate its rules, sysops have the ability to issue temporary or longer term blocks on their accounts to protect the integrity of the site.

Vandals are blocked immediately, but other blocks are given for a period of reflection and with the hope that the user being blocked may be able to return and edit in a positive way once the time has passed.

Blockable offenses

Here are the actions which can get one's account blocked. The block comment should state clearly what the reason was.

Vandalism. True vandalism is easy to spot and is utterly unmistakable. A glance at "recent changes" will often show someone creating an account and then going through as many pages as possible (until someone stops them) doing things like blanking the page, changing it to 100 repetitions of some crude anatomical reference, etc. The tolerance for this is absolutely zero. Such a person will be blocked with no possibility of appeal.

Parody. This is often easy to spot, but sometimes not. Obvious cases involve altering an article in such a way as to make the article an object of ridicule. It is sometimes done for ideological reasons, and sometimes for one's "15 minutes of fame"—there is an allure to the idea of typing something at one's computer that the whole world will see, an allure that sometimes affects people totally lacking in common sense. Vandalism and parody are problems for all wikis. Clear parody is treated the same as vandalism. Other cases are harder to judge, and may require serious editorial intervention.

Edit warring. When people disagree on content, they should try to work out their differences on the talk page. Just reverting each other's changes repeatedly does no good, and can lead to a temporary block if it distracts people from doing real work.

Incivility. We do not look kindly on personal insults directed at other contributors. You should be able to disagree on content without being personally insulting.

Intimidating behaviour/harassment. Personal remarks can sometime get very serious. When they do, the consequences can also get serious.

Removing content from article pages without discussion. We take a dim view of the plain removal of information; it smacks of censorship. Try to find a way of incorporating the other person's viewpoint into the article. When necessary, discuss on the talk page.

Inserting false information. 'Nuff said.

Inserting nonsense/gibberish into pages. 'Nuff said.

Spamming links to external sites. This is a problem on many wikis. Some people view a wiki as just a vehicle for increasing the visibility of their own external web site, whether it be hawking crackpot scientific theories, herbal supplements, or whatever. It is strictly forbidden.

Sockpuppetry. We do not allow use of multiple accounts for the purpose of evading blocks or making one's point of view appear to be more widely held than it is. There are mechanisms for appealing blocks, involving email or requests on the blocking sysop's talk page.

Inappropriate user name. It has been a general principle that one's user name be "based on one's real first name and last initial", though there are a number of reasons why that is not always practical. The point is that we don't like the kind of foolish "handles" that are often used in various blogs and social web sites. If you run afoul of this by accident, you will be asked to create a new account, and doing so will not be considered sockpuppetry. Of course, some user names are essentially just vandalism, and are treated that way.

90/10 rule violation. This rule is unique to Conservapedia. The objective is to avoid repetitive arguments. While an actual numerical check could be used, the usual application of the rule at present is a more subjective analysis of whether one is here just for engaging in combat. Remember, Conservapedia is a meritocracy, and an editor's contributions to mainspace weigh in the balance more in granting user rights than occuping other editors time in fruitless talk page discussion.